by Lisa Harris
“After your mom died, I told you I’d look in on him. Turns out, we enjoy hanging out. There’s nothing like a close ball game on the big screen with him and a couple of his old army buddies.”
“I’m not even going to ask what the two of you talk about.” She laughed as they started walking through the open office space. “But thank you.”
And he wasn’t going to tell her that her dad had been his source of updates on how she was doing. Her father had tried over the years to get him to come over when Jordan was home visiting, but he’d always managed to find an excuse. At the time it seemed enough knowing she was okay. But seeing her now made him wonder if he’d been wrong.
“I just can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve seen you,” Garrett said. “It’s as if time has stood still for you. You look exactly the same.”
Beautiful.
She avoided his gaze. “I don’t think you’ve aged much either.”
“A few gray hairs maybe.”
“Are you still running?” she asked.
“I ran the Nashville Marathon a couple weeks ago. Trying to stay fit.”
“Congratulations. Maybe I’ll see you one day in Boston.”
“Maybe.”
He smiled as they approached the conference room, but he wasn’t interested in shallow pleasantries. Instead, he had this sudden urge to push aside the past decade, along with any regrets, and pick up where they’d left off.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
He glanced at his watch. “I suppose we should go in. They’re waiting for us.”
She nodded, then slipped inside the room ahead of him.
The rest of the team was already sitting at the long table in the room, and the sight brought with it a surge of memories. While Jordan might have barely aged in the past decade, that wasn’t true for everyone. Michaels had gone completely bald and put on a pound or two. Sam, as he’d noted last night, had a headful of gray hairs, but still seemed as fit as he’d been a decade ago. Nikki Boyd, Sarah Boyd’s sister, stood in the back of the room talking with Sam. She looked completely at ease in her law enforcement role.
“It’s good to see you, Agent Boyd,” Garrett said, shaking her hand.
“It’s Agent Grant now, actually,” she said, holding up her left hand. “I got married eight months ago. But I’m Nikki to you, Garrett.”
“Well, congratulations, Nikki. It’s nice to hear some good news in the middle of all this.”
“I appreciate your agreeing to come,” she said, turning to Jordan. “Both of you.”
“Me too,” Sam said.
Garrett didn’t tell them he had yet to make up his mind whether he was in or not.
“We’ll go ahead and get started now that everyone’s here,” Nikki said.
Garrett greeted Michaels, then took a seat next to Jordan at the table as Nikki moved to the front of the room and sat down next to a man he didn’t recognize.
“It’s good to see you all here, though as we know, the circumstances could be better,” Nikki said, scooting her chair forward. “For the past two years, I’ve been a part of TBI’s Missing Persons Task Force along with my partner, Agent Jack Spencer.” Nikki nodded toward the man sitting next to Garrett. “Two days ago, we received a call from the sheriff in Rutherford County. They found the body of a young girl, half buried in a grave. Her name is Chloe Middleton, and everything about the case points to our Angel Abductor being back, including the Polaroid photo taken right before she was killed. Which is why we’ve asked to bring the four of you on board. We need to close this case.”
“I understand you might have discovered the identity of the Angel Abductor?” Jordan asked.
Nikki nodded. “We thought we might have. About a year and a half ago, I was involved in a missing persons case involving a teenage girl. Long story short, our suspect, Randall Cooper, didn’t end up being the Angel Abductor like I thought he might be, but he claimed to know the man behind the abductions.”
“Who is he?” Garrett asked.
“Cooper told me they met in prison and that the other inmates called the man the Coyote. He kept Polaroid photos of the girls hidden away—photos that Cooper said he saw. He also said that the Coyote confessed that he had been the one behind the abductions. Then Cooper was transferred to another prison and lost track of the man. But it gave us a direction to go in.
“I spent weeks trying to track town the Coyote, until a friend of mine who works in the prison system came up with something. He researched the dates that the Coyote was in prison, talked to other inmates who knew him, and was finally able to come up with a name. Robert Wilcox.”
“What was he in prison for?” Jordan asked.
“Surprisingly enough, he was in prison for fraud. Not murder.” Nikki handed out the files sitting next to her. “I’ll give you the highlights now, but these files have everything we currently know about this man.”
Garrett opened up the file, then froze at the familiar photo staring up at him. His muscles tensed. Heart raced. How was this even possible?
“Wait a minute. This is Jason Fisher. I interviewed him a decade ago in connection to Marissa Dillinger’s disappearance.”
“That’s why we wanted you here, Garrett,” Jordan said. “When Nikki came to me about the case, I made the connection to Fisher from the photo of Wilcox.”
How had it taken all these years to make that connection? Now another girl was dead.
Garrett shook his head. “We decided he couldn’t be involved. In fact, he was at the police station when she was shot and when her body was found. With the medical examiner’s time-of-death, he had the perfect alibi.”
He stared at the familiar face on the photo. None of this made any sense. Unless . . .
“You think he was working with someone else?” he asked.
“It’s one of the things we’re exploring.” Jack Spencer tapped on the folder in front of him. “Here’s what we do know. Robert Wilcox—we believe that’s his real name—was wanted on a felony embezzlement charge in another state. He moved to Nashville back in 2002 and got a job at Raynott International Group, using the alias Jason Fisher. For almost a decade he somehow managed to get away with it.”
Anger simmered inside Garrett. “And during his free time he abducted and killed young girls.”
Jordan nodded. “When he was arrested in 2010, he was booked for federal mail and wire fraud crimes as Robert Wilcox, and for some reason, his alias was never discovered. We did recently find a missing persons report filed by an executive at Raynott for one of their employees—”
“Jason Fisher.” Garrett combed his hands through his hair. How had no one caught this?
“The file we have on him—for both names—is actually pretty sparse,” Nikki said. “Most of the information comes from the sister of a previous girlfriend, and a couple people he worked with. We know that his parents are deceased and that he had a stepbrother named Gregory Jennings, who’s also dead. He was hired by Raynott, as we know, where he worked as a financial analyst helping clients know when to buy and sell investments.”
“We looked into that being his connection with the girls’ families back when Marissa was murdered,” Garrett said.
“We were able to find connections with Raynott to four of the victims,” Jordan said.
Nikki nodded. “We’ve started interviewing his coworkers at Raynott, and we’re discovering that while everyone liked him, no one really knew him. He had a master’s in finance and was described as smart and funny, but most of the time he stayed to himself. In fact, so far we can’t find anyone who says they were close to him.”
“But here’s where things get interesting,” Jack said. “Just over two years ago, Wilcox escaped from prison during a transfer and disappeared.”
“So we don’t even know where he is?” Garrett asked.
“Here’s the clincher,” Nikki said. “The Coyote—Wilcox—Fisher—whatever you want to call him, is dead.”
“Dead?
” Michaels said.
“His body was found in a back alley in Memphis just over a year ago. He was murdered—stabbed multiple times. His killer was never found.”
Garrett’s head spun at the implications. None of this made sense.
“So what are you implying?” he asked, trying to sort through the details. “That Cooper lied? Or maybe this Coyote, who turned out to be Wilcox, was simply spinning his own lies?”
“Both are possibilities,” Jack said. “Even though we don’t have a confession from Wilcox—just a statement from another convicted criminal—we believe both were telling the truth. In going through the timeline and the information you found on Fisher back then, Garrett, everything about him fits.”
“On top of that,” Nikki added, “Cooper had a Polaroid photo of my sister, which means that it’s almost certain he really had been in contact with our abductor.”
“But the piece that doesn’t fit is Marissa’s death,” Jordan said. “Hers doesn’t, and Chloe’s doesn’t. Who killed them?”
“That’s what we have to figure out,” Jack said. “Because either Fisher is our man, and he was working with someone, or we’re looking at a copycat. It’s always possible that after all these years, the specific details of our killer’s MO, like the Polaroid, leaked.”
Garrett stared at Fisher’s photo, hating even the possibility that the Angel Abductor had been in this building, and they’d let him walk out.
“If I decide that I’m in, what happens next?” he asked.
“We dig up everything we can to find out who he might have been working with,” Nikki said. “Thankfully, Garrett, your investigation into Fisher a decade ago has already given us a head start.”
Jordan reached out and squeezed his arm. “What do you say, Garrett? Are you in?”
25
12:16 p.m.
TBI Headquarters
Jordan kneaded the back of her neck with her fingertips, trying to stave off a headache that had been coming on the past couple hours despite the pain medicine she’d taken earlier. She glanced at the photo of Chloe—victim number seven—hanging on the whiteboard they set up in the front of the room. She still couldn’t believe they were back working on this case after all these years.
But they were.
We need to find whoever’s behind this, God.
She grabbed two more ibuprofen from her purse, wishing she had her stronger prescription ones. She’d started getting migraines about two years ago. The doctor had assured her they were due to hormonal changes, but that didn’t take away the frustration of having to deal with them when she needed to be concentrating on work.
Garrett tossed the wrapper from the sub he’d just eaten into the wastebasket, then stopped next to her desk. “You okay? I know it’s been an intense day so far.”
“It’s nothing. Just a headache.” She looked up at him, grateful he’d decided to officially join them on this one last case. “Listen. I’ve been going through the information you were able to dig up on Jason Fisher when you originally thought he was a suspect. The man was a genius when it came to covering up his financial trail. That explains why he was able to use an alias and disappear for so many years. But I might have found a piece of property he owned.”
“Here in Nashville?”
Jordan nodded. “The owner’s name is listed as a trust, but there is a link to Fisher.”
“Why list the owner as a trust?”
“Most people do it to provide anonymity, which would make sense in his case.” Jordan scanned her notes. “The house is paid off, and the woman living there is Rose Winters. I haven’t been able to find out much about her except that she has a Tennessee driver’s license and no police record. She doesn’t even have a social media presence.”
“Maybe that’s not her real name,” Garrett said, leaning against the edge of the desk.
“At this point, anything is possible.” She leaned back in her chair. “I haven’t been able to find any other connection between the two of them, but they obviously knew each other.”
“Maybe she’s a relative we missed, or an old girlfriend?”
“It’s definitely possible, though the only girlfriend we know of died a couple years before Wilcox did. In the meantime, I’m going to send everything I’ve got to research so they can analyze it themselves. It’s going to take quite a bit more digging.”
“You’ve got an address?”
“Yes.” Jordan tapped her pen on the computer screen. “The house is east of here, about thirty minutes or so.”
“Good. I think we need to go pay Rose Winters a visit.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Jordan undid her seat belt as Garrett parked the same Toyota Camry he’d driven a decade ago in front of Rose Winter’s home. She wasn’t surprised he was still driving his old car. Little, it seemed, about him had changed. That must be why she felt just as comfortable around him as she always had. She glanced at his familiar profile that still managed to stir up her emotions. But while her sister might have been right about how they’d always danced around the edges of a relationship, she knew that seeing him again after all these years wasn’t going to change anything between them. Not anymore.
Instead, they walked together up to the two-story, sage-green house that sat back a couple dozen yards from the road. The front yard was neatly trimmed, with a few shrubs and trees and a brick walkway. The porch was old and had been repaired with a couple new boards that were a slightly different color. A wooden swing hung next to two Adirondack chairs with gray cushions, and closer to the door was a set of empty planters and a mailbox hanging askew on the wall. All the place needed was a bit of TLC.
Jordan rang the doorbell, hoping they were going to find someone at home.
A dog started barking, then a few seconds later an older woman answered the door. She kept the screen door shut while the brown-and-white basset hound continued barking at her feet.
“Daisy . . . quiet.” Her eyes narrowed as the dog settled down. “I’m sorry. Can I help you?”
Jordan held up her badge, wondering if this was the woman they were looking for. “I’m Special Agent Jordan Lambert with the FBI and this is Garrett Addison, a consultant with TBI. We’re looking for Rose Winters.”
The woman looked behind her, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. Rose isn’t well and can’t be disturbed.”
“It’s very important that we see her,” Jordan said, glancing into the house. The entryway held a small decorative table and a large piece of abstract art hanging on the wall above it. “I promise it won’t take long.”
“Like I said, I’m sorry, but because of her health, she rarely sees people. And today she’s feeling particularly poorly.”
Jordan glanced at Garrett and let out a sharp huff of air. At the moment, Rose Winters was the closest thing they had to a lead. They needed to speak with her.
“If we can’t see Ms. Winters, then maybe you can help us.” Garrett held up his phone and showed the woman a photo of Robert Wilcox. “Do you know this man?”
She stared at the photo, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. No. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“We understand Ms. Winters knows him,” Jordan rushed on. “She’s not in any trouble. All we need is information about him.”
“Like I said, I don’t know him, and I’m sure Rose doesn’t either. Now if you’ll excuse me,” the woman said before slamming the door shut.
“That went well,” Jordan said, shivering as she shoved her hands into her coat pockets.
“We could insist she come in for questioning. We did that with Fisher.”
Jordan had just started down the porch stairs when the front door opened again.
“Excuse me . . . I couldn’t help but overhear you asking for me.”
“Rose Winters?” Jordan asked as she headed back toward the door.
“Yes.”
“I’m Special Agent Jordan Lambert with the FBI, and this is Garrett Addison.”
Rose steppe
d out of the house onto the porch, closing the screen again so the dog wouldn’t get out. Jordan studied the woman. She was somewhere in her mid to late thirties, she had fair, almost sallow skin, and long brown hair that was pulled to the side in a braid.
She tugged her thick maroon sweater tighter around herself. “Maggie works for me and can be a bit overprotective sometimes, but she means well. What can I do for you?”
Jordan looked behind Rose and saw Maggie still standing in the doorway. “Would you mind if we spoke to you for a few minutes?”
“Of course not.” Rose turned back to Maggie. “Why don’t you make some coffee for us, Maggie? We can drink it here on the porch. I could use some fresh air. The weatherman said that another cold front is on its way, but the sun’s out for now.”
Jordan waved her hand at the offer. “We don’t need anything, thank you. We just need to ask you a few questions.”
“Okay, but it really is no trouble, trust me. It gets so boring here some days. I don’t get many visitors.”
Maggie frowned at Rose’s response. “You don’t have to speak to them, Rose, and besides that, you’re going to get chilled out there.”
“I’m fine, Maggie. It’s just a few questions, and if you don’t mind, I’d still like some coffee.” Rose sat down on the swing and motioned for them to sit down on the chairs. “You’ll have to excuse her. She tends to worry about me.”
“She said you were sick,” Garrett said.
“It’s nothing serious for the most part. Just some minor heart issues that make me tire quickly. I stay cooped up in the house most of the time. Today happens to be one of my good days.”
“It’s a nice house,” Jordan said. “How long have you lived here?”
“About ten years, I guess.”
“Do you live alone?”
“Maggie has a bedroom and bathroom downstairs. She takes care of me. My parents were killed when I was young, and I spent most of my life in foster care. But I’m not sure what your questions have to do with Daisy.”
Jordan eyed the front door. “The dog?”
